The World Bank‘s $4.1bn (£2.6bn) investments in forestry over the past 10 years have done little to reduce poverty, improve conservation, tackle climate change or benefit local communities in developing countries, a study by its own inspectors has found.

The 202-page report – a copy of which has been seen by the Guardian – was compiled by the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), which consists of senior bank staff and outside consultants. The document says the bank’s financial support helped to protect 24m hectares (59m acres) of forest around the world and to classify 45m ha of forest as being on indigenous people’s land. But it says the bank mostly failed to address critical social and environmental issues.

The World Bank funded 345 major forestry projects in 75 countries in the decade to July 2011. The IEG panel, which visited many of the projects and interviewed hundreds of people, criticised the bank strongly for:

• Continuing to support industrial logging.

• Not involving communities in decision-making.

• Assuming that benefits would accrue to the poor rather than the rich and powerful.

“it says the bank mostly failed to address critical social and environmental issues”

Of course it did. Since when it is the responsibility of a f.cking bank to address critical social and environmental issues? These a heavy weight political issues, who on earth wanted unelected bodies, intrinsically irresponsible in political matters, to decide or even address them?

Whenever an entity claims responsibility beyond what is actually assigned to it, smell scam and a stinking one at that.